Architect | Ravi Raj Architect |
Location | Somers, New York, United States |
Photographs | Nick Glimenakis |
Perched along a forested hillside in the town of Somers, New York, the Clover Hill Residence is the renovation of a late 19th century masonry foundry into a private dwelling. The clients are a pair of urban dwellers, looking to create a contemporary weekend home outside the city.
Many of the original features of the foundry building, such as the thick brick walls and rough timber supports were retained during the new renovation. Care was taken to keep these key features while updating the layout for modern living.
The house opens onto a double-height living room, where a black wood burning stove soars dramatically to the ceiling. The marble-filled kitchen is tucked under the upstairs loft and flows into a window-clad dining area, which gives the home an urban-loft-in-a-farmhouse feel. The ground floor also houses a bedroom, as does the lower level where there’s a guest room and master bedroom that connects to a wraparound terrace and the surrounding woods.
On the upper level, the main entry landing connects to a new stairway leading up to a screening room and loft bedroom cantilevered above the kitchen, which offers birdseye views of the living room below. The architectural language of the landing, stairway and overhead loft read as a contemporary volume set within the aged brick and timber space.
A material palette of contrasting tones and hues was chosen to accentuate the interplay between the existing masonry structure and newly defined living spaces. Natural materials such as the whitewashed plywood stair, honed marble kitchen island and charred oak slats of the loft bedroom compliment the original masonry and timber character of the foundry.